Charles Black Jr., a top adviser to the McCain campaign, has been the subject of unflattering ads in recent days by the Barack Obama campaign connected to his lobbying for Chinese and Russian oil companies.

But Black's largely-overlooked lobbying for a Russian think tank closely linked to the Kremlin may be more intriguing, and more instructive in understanding the limitations of current lobbyist disclosure laws.

In 2005, Black (pictured with McCain, left, aboard McCain's campaign plane in an AP photo by Mary Altaffer) signed up to lobby for the awkwardly named Center of the Development of Information Society, headed at the time, by Leonid Reiman, the telecom minister for then-president Vladimir Putin.

Black's firm, BKSH & Associates Worldwide, was paid $50,000 for eight months work, but it's not clear from disclosure what, if anything, the firm did for the money.

The current chairman of the think tank is Igor Yurgens, a top advisor to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who sent Yurgens to the U.S. in mid-August to try to sooth American displeasure over Russian occupation of portions of Georgia.

Yurgens said he wasn't at the center in 2005 and couldn't comment on what it wanted from the U.S. government. "It's re-branded completely," Yurgens said in a recent telephone conversation.

The center was described as a telecommunications think tank in BKSH's lobbying papers but has broadened its focus to include a range of issues, including health care, education and housing, and it has a new name in English -- the Institute of Contemporary Development. (The institute is commonly known as RIO, after its Russian acronym.)

Whatever its name, its leadership, in 2005 and now, looks to be drawn from the same rarefied political circles.

Medvedev, Putin's hand-picked successor, is the president of the RIO board and Reiman is still involved, as a board member and he rates special mention on the institute's web site as an adviser to the current president. At least two other top Medvedev administrations officials with roots in the Putin presidency also turn up on the board roster.

Black, who founded the firm that became BKSH in the early 1980s, retired from the company at the end of March, after McCain told to campaign staffers to give up lobbying work or leave his campaign.

It beggars belief that his retirement marks a departure from the Washington influence business for Black, since he retains other business interests at the juncture of the private sector and the federal government and he remains a prince of the capital's permanent government.

For McCain, the lobbying connections of his top counselors remains an issue in part because he has defined himself in his presidential campaign as an opponent of Washington special interests, and in part because some of his advisers' business relationships are in global hot spots that might reasonably be expected to draw in a U.S. president.

Between Black's representation of RIO and McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann's former lobbying work on behalf of the government of Georgia, the Arizona senator has top advisers on both sides of the war between the two countries.

McCain has long been a critic of Russia's aggressive foreign policy positions under Putin and, now, Medvedev and he's harshly criticized Russian intervention in Georgia.

The McCain campaign maintains that that 's evidence of his independent views on the subject, no matter what his advisers' business interests.

But another way of looking at it is that McCain has key advisers with something less than an arms-length relationship with the two strategically important countries.

In Scheunemann's case, it's possible to get some sense of what he did on behalf of Georgia, because his consulting firm, Orion Strategies LLC, was required to file disclosure reports under the Foreign Agent Registration, which includes details about services rendered and government officials contacted.

For example, in 2007, Scheunemann reported contacting officials at the State and Defense departments to discuss Georgia's NATO aspirations and a colleague listed multiple contacts with House and Senate staffers to talk about a Russian missile incident and other developments.

Foreign countries and foreign political parties are required to file under FARA, everybody else, including foreign corporations and a foreign think tank like RIO, can file under the Lobby Disclosure Act, or LDA, which demands far less information.

BKSH registered to lobby the National Security Council, the House and Senate, the Commerce and State departments and the U.S. Trade Representative on behalf of RIO and listed interests in economics, foreign police and technology. But under "Specific lobbying issues,...", BKSH stated: "None."

It's possible BKSH didn't do much of anything for RIO. One of the trade's dirty little secrets is that lobby shops sometimes function as little more than clipping services for clients who feel they must have a presence in Washington.

But Black and BKSH didn't get the reputations they have by sitting on their hands.

There's been a push in Congress in recent months to require greater disclosure of foreign lobbying contacts.

Under legislation introduced by Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Claire McCaskill, anyone who represents foreign clients of any kind would be required to file under FARA.

The bill also would force consultants to disclose clients on whose behalf they contact an American official even if that official is outside the U.S. Currently, lobbying a U.S. official is reportable only if it happens within this country.

There's an obvious short-term political dimension to this bill. It targets Rick Davis, another top McCain adviser and longtime Washington lobbyist/consultant.

The firm contacted the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine on Yanukovich's behalf and a National Security Council staffer reportedly complained that Davis Manafort was undermining U.S. foreign policy.

While McCaskill and Schumer may not be looking past November with their lobbying legislation, there is a compelling argument for more disclosure.

Voters in the U.S. rightly view elections as an internal matter. But as the current financial services meltdown demonstrates, the nation's economy now is enmeshed in a global financial system with many centers of power.

International heavyweights like the European Union have even less disclosure than the U.S. The E.U., for instance, does not require lobbyists to list any of their clients. Client disclosure is voluntary for lobbyists in the United Kingdom.

Governments and businesses on the world stage are intertwined in ways not always apparent.

Consider Igor Yurgens. Turns out he briefly was a business associate of Black's.

In addition to his work for RIO and his ties to the Kremlin, Yurgens is a director of The PBN Co., a Washington-based PR firm specializing in the former Soviet Union, that since late 2007 has been part-owned by WPP Global, the same conglomerate that owns BKSH.

Firms like WPP offer a global web of highly-placed influence brokers who move between politics, government and business and this influence matrix by design involves Democrats and Republicans alike.

Before Black left BKSH, one of his bosses on the corporate table of organization was Democrat Mark Penn, a pollster and adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, and chairman of BKSH's parent, Burson-Marsteller Inc., itself a WPP subsidiary.

It's tough enough to link the dots when the players have a bit of a public profile in the U.S., like Yurgens.

But sometimes there are no dots to connect.

From August 2002 until August 2003, BKSH registered to lobby the House and Senate on behalf of a London-based firm named Cavendish Digicom Inc. for "public education and the support of democracy in Iran."

There's virtually no record of such a firm, anywhere, save a lapsed registration by a company with that name in the British Virgin Islands, a leading offshore financial center.

Riva Levinson, one of two lobbyists registered to act on behalf of Cavendish for BKSH now has her own consulting company, but she also declined to discuss her one-time client.

Cavendish's home is a four-unit apartment building in northwest London.

A woman answering a doorbell via intercom in the basement apartment confirmed that it was the office of Cavendish and asked who her caller was.

When the visitor identified herself as a Chicago Tribune reporter, she spoke inaudibly to someone else on her side of the door, returned and said, "Sorry, we don't know anything about that" and denied any connection to Cavendish.

A neighbor identified the occupant of the basement unit as a Jeffrey Cohen who ran a TV programming business, traveled frequently "to places like Khazakstan" and had "a lot of interests in Israel."

BKSH, which was paid $40,000 by Cavendish, declined to discuss its client as a matter of routine business practice.

azajac@tribune.com

Comments

Yup, McCain's for change alright...and it looks like he's going to have a crack foreign policy team as well: one who can see Russia, and one who gets paid by them.

Now how about a photo of Obama with Johnson and Raines from Fannie and Freddie and Countrywide, who are part of Obama's campaign team? Or is Raines too busy paying his $24 million fine for accounting "flaws?" And when will we see a photo of Obama and Ayers and when will the Tribune report on their joint efforts at radicalizing education in Chicago as detailed in today's Wall Street Journal. Don't hold your breath.

Yet another Zajac article on Black. Not a McCain hitpiece, however. Nobody at the Tribune would do that....

However, isn't it curious that the reporter writes 2 articles on Black, who's merely a McCain advisor, but zero articles on David Axelrod, who's Obama's spokesman and whom Newsweek Magazine calls a lobbyist?

You must be referring to the McCain campaign, or were you referring to McCain's baby, " The Reform Institute " !! His circle is a load of Lobbyists, all bent on cashing in, if the American electorate is that misguided, that it will elect him President !! The Lobbyists bounce, back and forth, between his campaign staff and the Institute. I wouldn't be surprised if you would find former Senator ' Whiner " Gramm there, because he didn't keep his lobbyist's head down with his silly remarks about our nation !! That is the name of the game with the Bush-McCain Republicans, croniism, opportunism all hiding behind a phony agenda !! Where have the good, real Republicans gone?!! Are they also embarrassed with what is masquerading as Republicans, today, as well !!?
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.

A bunch of drivel, four or more degrees of seperation from anything with substance and mostly innuendo and guessing at "possible" what?

What's the point here if I'm to wonder about anything criminal? Russian Spy's? Anti-American activities?

You can't even connect any dots? but toss out this information like it means something, possibly terrible connections to the MCCain campaign? This is so much of a stretch that it smacks of fear and smear Obama tactics - Marxist style!

John McCain, the candidate of the Washington lobbyists. They know who they can count on. They know who is going to do thier will. They know who their best friend in government is : John McCain the faux reformer.

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